Madurai Kamaraj University Vice-Chancellor Kalyani Mathivanan on Wednesday launched an online fee payment facility for thousands of students enrolled in its distance education programmes. It could be used to remit university fees, tuition fees, examination fee and other payments.
The new facility titled ‘State Bank Collect’ was launched at the State Bank of India (SBI), MKU branch. Students having Internet banking facility with SBI as well as those having ATM (Automated Teller Machine) cards issued by other banks can make payments online.
Hitherto the students had the option of paying the fees through Demand Drafts or challans. The two modes had their inherent shortfalls as many found them to be cumbersome. Hence, the Vice-Chancellor had ordered for making the payment process easier by leveraging the technology.
Talking to journalists, Ms. Mathivanan said that as on date 1,35,382 students had enrolled with the university’s Directorate of Distance Education (DDE). The aim of the university was to increase the number beyond two lakh through a set of new courses to be introduced from July.
She said that the syllabus for the courses had been prepared and the entire system had been put in place to introduce the new courses from next month.
“When my father (M.D.K. Kuthalingam) assumed office as the Vice-Chancellor of this university in 1994, it had a deficit budget. “It turned into a surplus budget when he completed his tenure and it was due to the distance education programmes,” she said while stressing how important the DDE was in augmenting revenue for the varsity. She also said that MKU’s distance education programmes were one of the most sought after in the country.
On sprucing up DDE’s study centres, she said that the university’s inspection team has been monitoring the centres continually and initiating necessary corrective actions wherever required.
K. Pitchumani, Registrar (in-charge); P. Periyakaruppan, Additional Director, DDE; R. Rajasekaran, Regional Manager, SBI (Region-I); and D. Sambath Kumar, branch manager, participated in the event to mark the launch of online payment facility.
